Re: how do you reconcile creationism and common ancestry? (was hi)

AN (cc. CED)

----- Original Message -----
From: AN
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 4:14 AM
Subject: hi

AN>Hello Sir, how are you?

Thanks for your message, which, since it may be of general interest, I am copying to my blog CreationEvolutionDesign, minus your personal identifying information and with other minor changes.

AN>Sir, how do you reconcile creationism and common ancestry ...

I covered this in my web page "Why I (a Creationist) Accept Common Ancestry". There I pointed out that God could create through common ancestry, e.g. Phillip E. Johnson's concession that "God ... might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process":

"I am a philosophical theist and a Christian. I believe that a God exists who could create out of nothing if He wanted to do so, but who might have chosen to work through a natural evolutionary process instead. I am not a defender of creation-science, and in fact I am not concerned in this book with addressing any conflicts between the Biblical accounts and the scientific evidence." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993, p.14. My emphasis)

and that therefore creationism and common ancestry are not mutually exclusive, since creationists can "believe that ... simple forms of life evolved gradually to become ... humans":

"Clearing up confusion requires a careful and consistent use of terms. In this book `creation- science' refers to young-earth, six-day special creation. `Creationism' means belief in creation in a more general sense. Persons who believe that the earth is billions of years old and that simple forms of life evolved gradually to become more complex forms including humans, are `creationists' if they believe that a supernatural Creator not only initiated the process but in some meaningful sense controls it in furtherance of a purpose. As we shall see evolution' (in contemporary scientific usage) excludes not just creation- science but creationism in the broad sense.' (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL., Second Edition, 1993, p.4. My emphasis)

"If an omnipotent Creator exists He might have created things instantaneously in a single week or through gradual evolution over billions of years. He might have employed means wholly inaccessible to science, or mechanisms that are at least in part understandable through scientific investigation. The essential point of creation has nothing to do with the timing or the mechanism the Creator chose to employ, but with the element of design or purpose. In the broadest sense, a `creationist' is simply a person who believes that the world (and especially mankind) was designed, and exists for a purpose." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second Edition, 1993, p.115. My emphasis)

"In a broader sense, however, a creationist is simply a person who believes in the existence of a Creator who brought about the existence of the world and its living inhabitants in furtherance of a purpose. Whether the process of creation took a single week or billions of years is relatively unimportant from a philosophical or theological standpoint. Creation by gradual processes over geological ages may create problems for biblical interpretation, but it creates none for the basic principle of theistic religion. And creation in this broad sense, according to a 1991 Gallup poll, is the creed of 87 percent of Americans. (Johnson P.E., "What is Darwinism?" in "Objections Sustained: Subversive Essays on Evolution, Law & Culture," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL, 1998, p.23. My emphasis)

AN> ... especially in regard with the human fossil record?

You do not define what you mean by "creationism" but since you indicate it needs to be reconciled to "common ancestry", I take it you mean it in the sense of separate creations, i.e. God created basic kinds ex nihilo or de novo (from out of nothing or from out of existing materials which were non-living).

But what I mean by "creationism" is mediate creation, i.e. God created ex nihilo the raw materials of the Universe (= Gen 1:1) and thereafter He created by modification (either naturally or supernaturally) of what He had previously made. This is in fact a Christian position with a long and distinguished pedigree, based on a distinction that goes at least as far back as Augustine (c. 354-430 AD), and accepted by Aquinas and Calvin, between primary and secondary creation:

"What distinction is signalized by the terms Creatio prima seu immediata, and Creatio secunda seu mediata, and by who was 'it introduced? The phrase Creatio prima seu immediata signifies the originating act of the divine will whereby he brings, or has brought into being, out of nothing, the principles and elementary essences of all things. The phrase Creatio secunda seu mediata signifies the subsequent act of God in originating different forms of things, and especially different species of living beings out of the already created essences of things. The Christian Church holds both." (Hodge A.A., "Outlines of Theology," [1879], Banner of Truth: Edinburgh, Second edition, , 1983, reprint, pp.238-239)

"At the same time, however, it is clear that the idea of primary creation contained in the formula creatio ex nihilo does not exhaust the biblical teaching on the subject. Man was not created ex nihilo, but out of the dust of the ground (Gn. ii. 7) and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air were formed out of the ground (Gn. ii. 19). This has been called secondary creation, a creative activity making use of already created materials, and stands alongside primary creation as part of the biblical testimony." (McKay K.L., "Creation," in Douglas J.D., et al., eds., "The New Bible Dictionary," [1962], Inter-Varsity Fellowship: London, 1967, reprint, p.268)

"It should be noted that Scripture does not always use the Hebrew word bara' and the Greek term ktizein in that absolute sense. It also employs these terms to denote a secondary creation, in which God made use of material that was already in existence but could not of itself have produced the result indicated, Gen. 1:21,27; 5:1; Isa. 6:7,12; 54:16; Amos 4:13; I Cor. 11:9; Rev. 10:6. It even uses them to designate that which comes into existence under the providential guidance of God, Ps. 104:30; Isa. 45:7,8; 65:18; I Tim. 4:4. two other terms are used synonymously with the term `to create,' namely, `to make' (Heb., 'asah; Greek, poiein) and `to form' (Heb. yatsar; Greek, plasso). The former is clearly used in all the three senses indicated in the preceding: of primary creation in Gen. 2:4; Prov. 16:4; Acts 17:24; more frequently of secondary creation, Gen. 1:7,16,26; 2:22; Ps. 89:47; and of the work of providence in Ps. 74:17. The latter is used similarly of primary creation, Ps. 90:2 (perhaps the only instance of this use); of secondary creation, Gen. 2:7,19; Ps. 104:26; Amos 4:13; Zech. 12:1; and of the work of providence, Deut. 32:18; Isa. 43:1,7,21; 45:7. All three words are found together in Isa. 45:7. Creation in the strict sense of the word may be defined as that free act of God whereby He, according to His sovereign will and for His own glory, in the beginning brought forth the whole visible and invisible universe, without the use of preexistent material and thus gave it an existence, distinct from His own and yet always dependent on Him. In view of the Scriptural data indicated in the preceding, it is quite evident, however, that this definition applies only to what is generally known as primary or immediate creation, that is, the creation described in Gen. 1:1. But the Bible clearly uses the word `create' also in cases in which God did make use of preexisting materials, as in the creation of sun, moon, and stars, of the animals and of man. ... cases, also designated in Scripture as creative work, in which God works through secondary causes, Ps. 104:30; Isa. 45:7,8; Jer. 31:22; Amos 4:13, and produces results which only He could produce." (Berkhof L., "Systematic Theology," [1949], Banner of Truth: London, 1966, reprint, pp128-129) .

My "mediate creation" position is taken from the 19th century evangelical Presbyterian theologian Charles Hodge's term "mediate, progressive creation":

"But while it has ever been the doctrine of the Church that God created the universe out of nothing by the word of his power, which creation was instantaneous and immediate, i. e., without the intervention of any second causes; yet it has generally been admitted that this is to be understood only of the original call of matter into existence. Theologians have, therefore, distinguished between a first and second, or immediate and mediate creation. The one was instantaneous, the other gradual; the one precludes the idea of any preexisting substance, and of cooperation, the other admits and implies both. There is evident ground for this distinction in the Mosaic account of the creation. ... It thus appears that forming out of preexisting material comes within the Scriptural idea of creating. ... There is, therefore, according to the Scriptures, not only an immediate, instantaneous creation ex nihilo by the simple word of God, but a mediate, progressive creation; the power of God working in union with second causes." (Hodge C., "Systematic Theology," [1892], James Clark & Co: London, Vol. I, 1960, reprint, pp.556-557)

It follows therefore that if, after the immediate, primary, ex nihilo creation of the raw materials of the Universe in Genesis 1, God thereafter created mediately, secondary, and not ex nihilo, then He created by modifcation. Now that could still mean de novo (in the sense of new) but it would then always be ex materia (out of existing materials).

Now creation out of existing materials could (but does not necessarily) mean out of existing living materials, e.g. Eve made out of Adam's rib (Gen 2:21-22). In that case, there would be real continuity (i.e. a common ancestry) between all living things.

As Darwin (citing Plato) correctly pointed out, there are really only two alternatives, either: 1) "species were ... created separately"; or 2) "species ... descended from other species":

"Lastly, you refer repeatedly to my view as a modification of Lamarck's doctrine of development and progression. If this is your deliberate opinion there is nothing to be said, but it does not seem so to me. Plato, Buffon, my grandfather before Lamarck, and others, propounded the obvious views that if species were not created separately they must have descended from other species, and I can see nothing else in common between the 'Origin' and Lamarck." (Darwin C.R., letter to Charles Lyell, 12 March, 1863, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.198-199. Emphasis in original)

Now when 1) "species were ... created separately" (separate creations) is compared in tandem with 2) "species ... descended from other species" (common ancestry), the latter wins easily. It makes no difference if 1) is modified to "basic kinds were created separately and then all species descended from them". For years on Internet lists I challenged separate creationists to compare their 1) separate creations position with my 2) common ancestry position, but there were no takers. I could never get a separate creationist to even state comprehesively what are the basic kinds! As far as I know, no separate creationist has ever stated comprehensively what are the basic kinds so their position can be tested against the scientific evidence. I therefore conclude that no separate creationist believes his own position is really true.

AN>Most evolutionists are pretty candid in their assessment that the human record is incomplete or indeed lacking.

I am not an evolutionist. My position is mediate creation (or progressive mediate creation).

And again, the only way to resolve this is to compare the two alternative positions: 1) separate creations and 2) common ancestry in tandem. The usual tactic of separate creationists is to keep their position out of the ring, attack common ancestry, and when common ancestry has problems (as all positions do), then declare that their separate creations position is the winner, even though it has never been in the ring.

When separate creationists claim that "the human [fossil] record is incomplete or indeed lacking", they forget: 1) it is necessarily so, given that it is just a tiny sample of all the hominoids that have ever lived; and 2) it is the same fossil record that separate creationists need to reconcile their position with (if theirs is a scientific position based on the empirical evidence).

And the broad pattern of the human fossil record is in accord with common ancestry and not in accord with separate creations. Here is a quote from a response I made on my Yahoo list CED to a request for evidence of common ancestry from a separate creationist:

---

From:"Stephen E. Jones" [...]
Date:Fri Apr 15, 2005 9:05 am
Subject: Re: ... tells me that you can provide substantiation for the belief that man and ape share a common ancestor [...]

AN>I am looking for evidence (fossils?) that could lead one to confidently conclude that man and apes share a common ancestry.

The prior question you need to ask yourself is, what "evidence ... that man and apes share a common ancestry" would you accept? If the answer is "none", or you set the evidential bar impossibly high, then you will never "conclude that man and apes share a common ancestry".

Briefly the fossil evidence "that man and apes share a common ancestry" is conclusive (to anyone who is open to the evidence), e.g. there is a pattern of increasing dissimilarity between "man and apes".

<~7 mya Apes only
~7-2 mya Apes and early-middle hominids, e.g. Australopithecines, H. habilis (bipedality, increasing brain size)
~2-0.1 mya Apes, early hominids decreasing/extinct, middle hominids and later hominids, e.g. H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, archaic H. sapiens, anatomically modern H. sapiens
~0.1-0 mya Apes, early middle and later hominids extinction, behaviourally modern H. sapiens (Cro-magnon man, modern H. Sapiens)

If this "fossil" pattern of increasing dissimilarity over time between "man and apes" does not "lead one to confidently conclude that man and apes share a common ancestry" then nothing will, i.e. one's position is one of invincible ignorance ... , "a cast of mind which seems peculiarly closed to evidence. ... no amount of evidence seems to be clinching. ... the facts are simply ignored or brushed aside as somehow deceptive, and the principles are reaffirmed in unshakable conviction." [...]

"There does remain, nonetheless, a cast of mind which seems peculiarly closed to evidence. When confronted with such a mind, one feels helpless, for no amount of evidence seems to be clinching. Frequently the facts are simply ignored or brushed aside as somehow deceptive, and the principles are reaffirmed in unshakable conviction. One seems confronted with what has been called `invincible ignorance.'" (Fearnside W.W. & Holther W.B.,
"Fallacy the Counterfeit of Argument," Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs NJ, 1959, 25th printing, p.113)

---

You can read the rest of the posts in that thread on that list (which I terminated to start a blog of the same name) to see that indeed for this separate creationist, "no amount of evidence" for common ancestry was sufficient, and "the facts [were] simply ignored or brushed aside as somehow deceptive" and I was "confronted with what has been called `invincible ignorance'"!

[...]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol.)
http://creationevolutiondesign.blogspot.com/

Re: "Proponents of intelligent design ... have long criticized science for not being able to explain ... how bees fly." (LiveScience, 9 January 2006)

Editor,
Livescience,
c/- Press Inquiries,
Imaginova.com

cc. CreationEvolutionDesign blog [with "9 January 2005" corrected in title]

In the article "Scientists Finally Figure Out How Bees Fly," Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience, 9 January 2006, the claim is made that:

"Proponents of intelligent design, which holds that a supreme being rather than evolution is responsible for life's complexities, have long criticized science for not being able to explain some natural phenomena, such as how bees fly."

and:

"Proponents of intelligent design, or ID, have tried in recent years to promote the idea of a supreme being by discounting science because it can't explain everything in nature. "People in the ID community have said that we don't even know how bees fly," Altshuler said. "We were finally able to put this one to rest."

The same article was repeated on MSNBC, Fox News and Yahoo!.

I have been a member of the ID movement since 1995, and have read most of its literature, and I have never heard of a claim by a proponent of intelligent design that "science ... can't explain ... how bees fly."

And after a Google search on "intelligent design" and "bees", I could not find such a claim. However, I did discover a discussion of your article at Bill Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog, and no one there had heard of the claim either.

So I would appreciate your journalist Sara Goudarzi or Douglas Altshuler (who seems to have been the source of the allegation), either letting me know where "Proponents of intelligent design ... have long criticized science for not being able to explain ... how bees fly," or issuing a public retraction.

Thank you.

Stephen E. Jones
http://creationevolutiondesign.blogspot.com/

A flaming hero: Do-or-die rescue by super[step]dad

A major (albeit unwebbed) story in today's Sunday Times (Western Australia's main Sunday newspaper), is of a stepfather who risked his life to save his stepchildren from a fire which gutted their house, while his partner, the children's mother, was thousands of kilometres away.

"A FATHER rescued his two stepchildren from their blazing house fearing he would only find their corpses. But Jeff Piefke's hopes soared when he heard his daughter's cry - a shout that sounded like "the voice of an angel". Speaking for the first time about his harrowing ordeal this week, the Dampier dad said he feared the worst when he woke to find his Portland Cres house ablaze in the aftermath of Cyclone Clare. Mr Piefke, 37, smashed his way through cyclone-proof shutters and a window before braving a virtual inferno to rush Justin, 4, who was unconscious, and Nikita, 7, to safety. "They're two innocent little kids. I would have gone first before letting them die in that fire," he said yesterday, choking back tears. "I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I'd lost the kids. "I almost dropped to my knees and gave up. I thought they were dead and I froze. I started falling apart. "Then I realised I had to get them out or I wouldn't be able to face life any more. "I was screaming to the kids, but I couldn't see them. Then I heard a shout and I tell you, it was the voice of an angel. It was a voice from above." Mr Piefke's partner of nine years, Paula Oliver, said her children would be dead if not for his courage. "He's amazing, he deserves a medal. He's the type of guy who would do that for anyone," she said. "Those kids wouldn't have survived without Jeff." But Mr Piefke played down his heroic role. "I'm not a hero; instinct just kicked in and anyone else would have done the same," he said. But Mr Piefke played down his heroic role. "I wake up at 3am every night thinking maybe I could have done more, maybe I could have been quicker. I'm just so thankful they're alive." Justin and Nikita are being treated for minor burns and smoke inhalation at Princess Margaret Hospital. They are expected to make a full recovery and doctors hope they will be released from hospital in weeks. Mr Piefke, a mechanical fitter, was treated for wounds to his left arm, which was badly lacerated when he smashed the window. The drama unfolded at 10.30pm on Tuesday when a candle lit by Ms Oliver's other daughter, Myrissa, 14, ignited a bamboo shelf filled with books. Rescue efforts were hampered and the house was gutted - with $350,000 of damage - because phone lines were down and the property was shuttered in the wake of Cyclone Clare. Ms Oliver was in Perth to buy a new family car. Mr Piefke had worked a long shift at Pilbara Iron as staff at the minesite battened down ahead of the cyclone. When he returned home, Mr Piefke put the children to bed and fell asleep in front of the television. "I've woken up to the smoke alarm and then the plastic runners over the carpet went up like petrol. They went up in a flash," he said. Within minutes the house was "roaring" with fire. Flames blocked the entrance to the children's room, forcing him to run outside and smash a window. The couple - who were not insured and lost everything in the blaze - plan to return to Dampier. "The kids are alive and that matters above all else, but it's a big shock. The kids have no clothes, no toys. I don't even have workboots," Mr Piefke said. The local community is rallying support. ... Mr Piefke said he was overwhelmed by the support offered by neighbours, friends, family, police, hospital staff and Pilbara Iron. "That's the main reason I'm telling my story, to thank everyone so much for their help and support," he said. ... " (Paddenburg T., "A flaming hero: Do-or-die rescue by superdad," The Sunday Times, January 15, 2006, p.4. My emphasis)

But obviously this poor `fool' (and the journalist, editor, and the readers, who think he is a "hero", as well as the "neighbours, friends, family, police, hospital staff and Pilbara Iron" who have been overwhelming in their support) have not heard of Darwinian "selfish-gene" evolutionary psychology theory, which maintains that not only should Mr Piefke not have risked his life for his stepchildren (which not only don't bear his genes, but bear a competitor's genes and also use up his and his partner's parental resources, which could be better spent in having and raising his own children) but he should have been trying to kill them. That is because, as evolutionary psychologist Robert Wright, citing research by leading EPs Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, "In Darwinian terms, a young stepchild is an obstacle to fitness, a drain on resources" and "selection must favor those parental psyches that do not squander it on nonrelatives":

"There is one other kind of fallout from current marital norms that comes into focus through the new paradigm: the toll taken on children. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson have written, `Perhaps the most obvious prediction from a Darwinian view of parental motives is this: Substitute parents will generally tend to care less profoundly for children than natural parents.' Thus, `children reared by people other than their natural parents will be more often exploited and otherwise at risk. Parental investment is a precious resource, and selection must favor those parental psyches that do not squander it on nonrelatives.' [Daly M. & Wilson M., "Homicide," Aldine de Gruyter: Hawthorne NY, 1988, p.83] To some Darwinians, this expectation might seem so strong as to render its verification a waste of time. But Daly and Wilson took the trouble. What they found surprised even them. In America in 1976, a child living with one or more substitute parents was about one hundred times more likely to be fatally abused than a child living with natural parents. In a Canadian city in the 1980s, a child two years of age or younger was seventy times more likely to be killed by a parent if living with a stepparent and natural parent than if living with two natural parents. Of course, murdered children are a tiny fraction of the children living with stepparents; the divorce and re marriage of a mother is hardly a child's death warrant. But consider the more common problem of nonfatal abuse. Children under ten were, depending on their age and the particular study in question, between three and forty times more likely to suffer parental abuse if living with a stepparent and a natural parent than if living with two natural parents. [Daly & Wilson, 1988, pp.89-91] It is fair to infer that many less dramatic, undocumented forms of parental indifference follow this rough pattern. After all, the whole reason natural selection invented paternal love was to bestow benefits on offspring. Though biologists call these benefits `investment,' that doesn't mean they're strictly material, wholly sustainable through monthly checks. Fathers give their children all kinds of tutelage and guidance (more, often, than either father or child realizes) and guard them against all kinds of threats. A mother alone simply can't pick tip the slack. A stepfather almost surely won't pick up much, if any of it. In Darwinian terms, a young stepchild is an obstacle to fitness, a drain on resources." (Wright R., "The Moral Animal: Evolutionary Psychology and Everyday Life," [1994], Vintage Books: New York NY, 1995, reprint, pp.103-104. My emphasis)

Another leading EP, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, under the heading, "Stepfathers [are] Worse Than No Father", in discussing "The murder of infants by stepfathers or mothers' boyfriends," and relying on Daly & Wilson, says that "The motive is not to kill the infant in order to increase reproductive access to the mother, but to rid oneself of an encumbrance" by "a high threshold for responding in a solicitous way toward an offspring not likely to be genetically related":

"Stepfathers Worse Than No Father. Westerners appalled by such barbaric treatment of the fatherless should take a look at their local newspapers. Child homicide in civilized societies is nowhere tolerated, very much against the law, and uncommon. Nevertheless, in North America when the father of offspring under two years of age no longer lives in the home and an unrelated man or stepfather lives there instead, this rare event is seventy times more likely to occur. [Daly & Wilson, "Homicide", 1988; Daly M & Wilson M.I., "Discriminative parental solicitude and the relevance of evolutionary models to the analysis of motivational systems." in Gazzaniga M., ed., "The cognitive Neurosciences," MIT Press: Cambridge MA, 1995, pp.1269-1286] The murder of infants by stepfathers or mothers' boyfriends resembles the circumstances under which sexually selected infanticide evolved in other primates: males from outside the breeding system increase their own chances to breed by eliminating offspring sired by rivals. The superficial similarities have sometimes led to the erroneous conclusion that child abuse as we know it today is or once was adaptive. [Wray H., "The evolution of child abuse," Science News, Vol. 122, 1982, pp.24-26] Some clarification is in order. Canadian psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson were the first to demonstrate increased risk to infants from having unrelated men in the house. They were careful to stress that in postindustrial human societies, neither child abuse nor infanticide is adaptive. More likely than not, the boyfriend goes to jail and the mother is prosecuted for neglect. More important, the attacker is not some invader entering the breeding system from out side it: he already has keys to the apartment and access to the mother's bed. Imagine: the mother goes off on an errand, leaving her baby in the boy friend's care. She may or may not have an inkling of the risk. Perhaps she senses that her boyfriend resents diversion of household resources, including her attention, to some other man's child. ... Perhaps boyfriend and baby are already off to a bad start all the more reason why the baby may reject such tentative comfort as this man offers. The baby cries, makes demands not willingly met by a man in no way sensitized for this task. Mother Nature has set high his threshold against altruism toward this insatiable stranger. Because of the low degree of relatedness between the man and the child, the benefits don't come close to out weighing the costs of care. [Daly & Wilson, 1980, 1988 & 1995] But beyond his lack of solicitude for an unrelated, very vulnerable but demanding dependent, the abusive boyfriend may have little more in common with an infanticidal monkey than a certain nonspecific impatience, a general predisposition to respond violently to repeated annoyance. ... A more appropriate animal analogue for a brutal stepfather would be an alloparent of either sex compelled to invest in an infant he or she has lost interest in. The motive is not to kill the infant in order to increase reproductive access to the mother, but to rid oneself of an encumbrance. What evolved is not the bizarre and maladaptive alternation of solicitude with torture that we know as `child abuse.' What evolved was a high threshold for responding in a solicitous way toward an offspring not likely to be genetically related the equivalent of emotional earplugs. [Daly M. & Wilson M.I., "Discriminative Parental Solicitude: A Biological Perspective," Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 42, No. 2, May, 1980, pp. 277-288]" (Hrdy S.B., "Mother Nature: Natural Selection and the Female of the Species," Chatto & Windus: London, 1999, pp.236-237. My emphasis)

But apart from the problem of controlling for other variables:

"It is well known that sociobiologists have darkened immense areas of paper, and imagined they were providing evidence for the inclusive fitness theory, by publishing statistics which show (for example) that people are more likely to mistreat a child they have adopted, or carried over from a previous marriage, than a child of their own current marriage. This sort of thing is, in fact, a major division of the sociobiological industry. But it would not be easy to conceive a more pointless expenditure of effort. For one thing, it is completely unnecessary, because we knew it all long ago. Traditions about cruel stepmothers, the misfortunes of foundlings and the like, are universal and ancient, and no one has ever thought that they are altogether without a good deal of foundation in fact. Parents, like all other humans, are exceedingly imperfect, and some of them really are as bad as adolescent children often imagine them to be. Everyone knows that. But everyone also knows, and always has known, that a child who goes further than its parental home will, in all probability, fare even worse. But the sociobiologists' statistics, about the probability of an adopted child being mistreated, etc., are not only unnecessary: they are completely worthless as evidence for the shared genes theory of kin altruism. The reason is, that they are subject to an enormously high level of what experimental scientists call `noise'. That is, it is quite impossible to determine how far the observed effects are due to the cause which is being 'tested for' - in this case, the actual degree of relatedness and how far they are due to other causes altogether." (Stove D.C., "Darwinian Fairytales," Avebury: Aldershot UK, 1995, pp.149-150. Emphasis in original)

there is the same old problem that "Any behavior and its opposite is `explained' by evolutionary selection.... Thus, nothing is explained," when EP `explains' as "evolutionarily adaptive" both why natural parents mistreat and kill their children and also why step-parents mistreat and kill their partners' natural children:

"The Evil-Father Syndrome. Evolutionary psychology is weakest when it attempts to explain unusual human behavior, such as the murder of children by their parents. To Darwinians, who view procreation as the sine qua non of life, these are the most perverse of all acts. The problem was taken up in the 1980s by Margo Wilson and her husband, Martin Daly of McMaster University in Canada, among the most respected of all evolutionary psychologists. After analyzing murder records from the United States and Canada, Wilson and Daly determined that children were roughly sixty times more likely to be killed by a stepparent-and usually a stepfather-than by a natural parent. They pointed out that this type of non-kin infanticide is common in nature; males of many species, from mice to monkeys, kill offspring that their mates conceived with another male. The selfish-gene perspective was upheld after all. Or was it? Even Wilson and Daly have warned that their results should be interpreted with caution-and with good reason. Clearly one cannot say that men have an innate propensity to kill their mate's children if the children were fathered by other men, because the vast majority of stepfathers never abuse or kill their children. Moreover, fathers who adopt children are even less likely than biological fathers to kill or abuse their children. Of course, men who adopt children are atypical, because they are screened for emotional and financial stability-but that is exactly the point. Men who abuse stepchildren are obviously atypical too. They may have assumed responsibility for a spouse's children reluctantly. They may be subject to unusual financial and emotional stresses. These are the factors that lead certain men to kill or harm a mate's children-not some instinctual urge that they share with mice or monkeys. Wilson and Daly's research is nonetheless often cited as a model of Darwinian social science, since it addresses an important issue and rests on a large empirical foundation. When the New York Times in 1997 asked leading intellectuals to name the last book they had read twice, Steven Pinker singled out Homicide, a book in which Wilson and Daly presented an evolutionary view of human violence. Ironically, Pinker later wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine that inadvertently undermined the Daly and Wilson research- and, indeed, the entire enterprise of Darwinian psychology. Pinker's article addressed a spate of incidents in which biological mothers had killed their newborn children. (In one case, a girl at a high school dance gave birth in a bathroom stall, killed the infant, and then returned to the dance floor.) Although maternal infanticide seems at first glance to be the ultimate violation of Darwinian precepts, Pinker said, it might result from natural selection. He noted that in certain stressful circumstances, our maternal ancestors would have been well advised to kill a newborn baby rather than devoting scarce resources to it, resources needed to sustain the mother and her older offspring. This innate psychological module might be switched on in modern mothers by severe stress. A few weeks after Pinker's article was published, the New York Times Magazine printed a letter from Claude Fischer, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley. Pinker's article, Fischer complained, `illustrates how silly evolutionary explanations of human behavior have become. When mothers protect their newborns (which almost all do), it's because that behavior is evolutionarily adaptive. And now, when a few mothers kill their newborns, that's evolutionarily adaptive too. Any behavior and its opposite is `explained' by evolutionary selection.... Thus, nothing is explained.'" (Horgan J., "The Undiscovered Mind: How the Brain Defies Explanation," [1999], Phoenix: London, 2000, pp.183-185)

And what's more, Wilson and Daly were just plain wrong, since "A major study ... found that there was no significant difference between the rates of severe violence perpetrated by natural parents and step-parents:

"But a controversial new theory would have us believe that the stereotypes of cruel or heartless step-parents that run through folklore have a biological basis. A pair of Canadian psychologists, Margo Wilson and Martin Daly, claim that children are up to 100 times more likely to be abused or killed by a step-parent than by a genetic parent. The[y] ... believe the heightened level of violence suffered by stepchildren is a product of evolutionary programming. Daly and Wilson are in the vanguard of the self-proclaimed `new science' of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychologists believe that all human behavior has been shaped by a ruthless Darwinian calculus of reproductive self-interest. ... In evolutionary terms, then, stepchildren will always be behind the eight ball. There is simply no good Darwinian reason for an adult to `invest' in a child who doesn't share their genes. ... Daly and Wilson have put together an impressive array of statistics from a number of countries, all of which point, in their view, to one conclusion: that step-parents are, in fact, `hugely over-represented' as perpetrators of child abuse, and `even more hugely as child murderers'. ... However, there is a paradox about these grisly statistics, one that seems to upset the whole Darwinian applecart. In all these countries, the total number of children killed by their natural parents is still higher than that killed by step-parents. Evolutionary psychologists have developed some ingenious theories to explain why it is that anyone should commit what amounts to genetic suicide by murdering their own offspring. ... Within the scientific community are many who believe Daly and Wilson's Darwinian view of parental love is flawed, and question their statistical evidence and scientific reasoning. A major study published in 1991 by R.J. Gelles and J.W. Harrop [Gelles, R. & Harrop, J. (1991). The risk of abusive violence among children with nongenetic caretakers. Family Relations, 40, 78- 83], veteran American researchers on family violence, found that there was no significant difference between the rates of severe violence perpetrated by natural parents and step-parents. And Steven Rose, a professor of biology at the Open University in Britain, and a leading critic of evolutionary psychology, argues that Daly and Wilson have tailored the facts to fit their hypothesis. `There's a huge difference in murder rates between, say, the UK and the US,' says Rose. `For their hypothesis to have any scientific validity, you would expect the rate to be reasonably constant across populations. And even more importantly, the actual percentage of step-parents who kill or abuse a child is tiny. The vast majority are no different from genetic parents: if there really were some deep Darwinian antipathy between step-parents and stepchildren, you would expect a lot more step-parents to be killers, and that simply isn't the case.' Leslie Margolin, a child-abuse researcher at the University of Iowa, is less circumspect, calling Daly and Wilson's theory `patent nonsense'. `Step-parents don't have the same social supports and incentives to care for children as biological parents,' argues Margolin. `They don't have a long shared history with the kids.'. ... in a significant number of instances, stepfathers were encouraged to assault a child by the child's mother. ... This scenario, repeated consistently in the cases Margolin studied, seems to strike at the roots of Daly and Wilson's work. So, why then would a mother jeopardise her `precious Darwinian investments' ... by encouraging a genetic interloper to do them harm? Daly and Wilson shrug off these criticisms. ... In Daly and Wilson's world view, the truth is much simpler: stepparents feel a kind of visceral resentment at `pseudo-parental obligation' that is, in Darwinian terms, against nature. ... Like many of the comparisons evolutionary psychology makes between human and animal behavior, this has a seductive surface appeal. Rose, however, calls it a `crappy just-so story', no more deserving of scientific credibility than Kipling's fables. `If it's natural, and lions do it all the time, then why don't humans?' says Rose ... Rose argues that Daly and Wilson ignore counter-examples from animal and human behavior that might make their theory look shaky. `The real clincher is adoption. Adoptive parents have no genetic relationship to their children, but there's no evidence at all that they are any more violent or abusive towards their children than "natural" parents.'" (Morton T., "Child-killers: is it in the genes?," The Age, 6 May 2000. My emphasis)

So once again, when Darwinian evolution is actually put to the experimental test, it is found to be a weak-to-non-existent causal factor! And if "There is simply no good Darwinian reason for an adult to `invest' in a child who doesn't share their genes" but they do it anyway (even to the extent of being willing to lay down their life for their stepchildren - as Mr Piefke was), then why is not Darwinian evolution (at least as an explanation of human behaviour) falsified? But of course, "Daly and Wilson shrug off these criticisms". To a true-believing Darwinist, the "a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory ... that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts"!:

"For myself I really think it is the most interesting book [The Origin of Species] I ever read, and can only compare it to the first knowledge of chemistry, getting into a new world or rather behind the scenes. To me the geographical distribution, I mean the relation of islands to continents, is the most convincing of the proofs; and the relation of the oldest forms to the existing species. I dare say I don't feel enough the absence of varieties, but then I don't in the least know if everything now living were fossilized whether the paleontologists could distinguish them. In fact the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts won't fit in, why so much the worse for the facts is my feeling." (Erasmus Darwin, letter to [his brother] Charles Darwin, November 23, 1859, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, p.29).

I have added some of the above quotes to a new section of my "Problem of Evolution" book outline, PE 15.2.4 "Evolutionary Psychology ... Step-parents"

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins #5

The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins, Beliefnet, 15 December 2005 The renowned biologist talks about intelligent design, dishonest Christians, and why God is no better than an imaginary friend. Interview by Laura Sheahen. ...

Continued from part #4 with my comments bold and in square brackets and the interviewer's questions bold and in italics.

You've said, "don't name our present ignorance God"--which you said is what intelligent design proponents are doing. They're taking an area where we're ignorant and naming that God. Do you think science will eventually explain everything we wonder about now?

I don't know the answer. I'm equally excited by both in a way. I rather like the idea of understanding everything and I also quite like the idea of science being a never-ending, open-ended quest. [If Dawkins did say that "is what intelligent design proponents are doing", naming "our present ignorance God" then he is being disingenuous, because as he must know, ID theorists "don't name our present ignorance God"! See my new ID FAQ item, "Objections to ID ... `ID is an argument from ignorance'''. This continual misrepresentation of ID by its opponents is a tacit admission that they cannot deal with ID on its merits. It will backfire on them eventually, as the public increasingly realize what ID actually is, namely "... the scientific theory that intelligent causation is necessary to explain certain features of the natural world; and the evidence of that intelligent causation is empirically detectable".]

If you had to name top sources for optimism and hope in a naturalistic or materialistic worldview, what would they be?

I think there is something glorious in the universe, in contemplating the Milky Way galaxy, in contemplating the fact that this is only one in billions of galaxies, contemplating the fact that at the beginning of the 21st century, humanity really has gone a very long way toward understanding the universe in which we live and the life form of which we are a part. I find that a truly inspirational thought. [Dawkins has not answered the question, which was "top sources for optimism and hope in a naturalistic or materialistic worldview" (my emphasis)? A theistic worldview could equally (if not with more justification) claim the same. As Paul Davies, from a "naturalistic or materialistic worldview" is "incomprehensible" that "the universe is ... comprehensible" to humans:

"Another of Einstein's famous remarks is that the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. The success of the scientific enterprise can often blind us to the astonishing fact that science works. Though it is usually taken for granted, it is both incredibly fortunate and deeply mysterious that we are able to fathom the workings of nature by use of the scientific method. The purpose of science is to uncover patterns and regularities in nature, but the raw data of observation rarely exhibit explicit regularities. Nature's order is hidden from us: the book of nature is written in a sort of code. To make progress in science we need to crack the cosmic code, to dig beneath the raw data, and uncover the hidden order. To return to the crossword analogy, the clues are highly cryptic, and require some considerable ingenuity to solve. What is so remarkable is that human beings can actually perform this code-breaking operation. Why has the human mind the capacity to "unlock the secrets of nature" and make a reasonable success at completing nature's cryptic crossword"? It is easy to imagine worlds in which the regularities of nature are transparent at a glance or impenetrably complicated or subtle, requiring far more brainpower than humans possess to decode them. In fact, the cosmic code seems almost attuned to human capabilities. This is all the more mysterious on account of the fact that human intellectual powers are presumably determined by biological evolution, and have absolutely no connection with doing science. Our brains have evolved to cope with survival in the jungle," a far cry from describing the laws of electromagnetism or the structure of the atom." (Davies P.C.W., "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Science," in Templeton J.M., ed., "Evidence of Purpose: Scientists Discover the Creator," Continuum: New York NY, 1994, p.54)

According to Dawkins himself, from his "naturalistic or materialistic worldview" (i.e. his "Darwinian View of Life") "we should expect" "The universe we observe" to have "no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference" to humans:

"Theologians worry away at the `problem of evil' and a related `problem of suffering.' ... On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes, meaningless tragedies like the crashing of this bus are exactly what we should expect, along with equally meaningless good fortune. Such a universe would be neither evil nor good in intention. It would manifest no intentions of any kind. In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. As that unhappy poet A.E. Housman put it: `For Nature, heartless, witless Nature Will neither care nor know.' DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music." (Dawkins R., "River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life," Phoenix: London, 1996, p.155. Emphasis in original)

If it doesn't (as Dawkins himself concedes here), then that is more evidence against, Dawkins' "naturalistic or materialistic worldview", his "Darwinian View of Life"!]

Obviously, there are other things having nothing to do with science-music, poetry, sex, love. These are all things that make life, to me, extremely worth living. [So where does Dawkins get "love" amongst other "things that make life ... extremely worth living" in a "universe [that] ... has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference"?]

[Continued in part #6]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

Intelligent Design is Not About Religion

Here is an excerpt from an op-ed piece that caught my eye, which explains the difference between ID and Biblical creationism:

"While many Young Earth Creationists and Old Earth Creationists support Intelligent Design as a rational answer to Darwinism, Intelligent Design itself stands apart from biblical creationism as a non-religious approach to origins" (my emphasis)

Opinion Editorials
January 10, 2006
Intelligent Design is Not About Religion
Gregory Rummo

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." – Charles Darwin, "Origins"

If Kansas can be considered Ground Zero in the debate between Darwinists vs. Intelligent Design proponents, a recent explosion rocking the battle zone took place last month at the University of Kansas in its religious studies department. A course titled "Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies," was to be offered.

I suspected, despite the closed-mindedness of the department chairman-Paul Mirecki-and his approach to relegating ID to "mythology," there would have been lively debates in the classroom.

And had this been the case, hopefully more light than heat would have been shed on a debate that simply won’t go away between Darwinists, who base their theory more on naturalism-a philosophy-than science, and the proponents of Intelligent Design.

Intelligent Design is a systematic evaluation of observed biological phenomena resulting in the logical conclusion that design is inherent in living systems. The inescapable implication-and I guess the thing that drives its critics hysterical-is that design implies A Designer. Why this never presents a problem when we admire a work of art by Van Gogh or a musical composition by Claude Debussy escapes me. But logic and common sense dissipates when Darwinists are confronted by an alternate theory to their most hallowed orthodoxy. And instead of dealing with the substance of the arguments for ID, they skewer its proponents, labeling them as "stealth creationists;" a charge that is not altogether fair.

While many Young Earth Creationists and Old Earth Creationists support Intelligent Design as a rational answer to Darwinism, Intelligent Design itself stands apart from biblical creationism as a non-religious approach to origins. William Dembski, one of its chief proponents describes it as "the study of patterns in nature that are best explained as the result of intelligence."

Tom Burr, a retired biology teacher from Franklin Lakes explains on his blog: "Intelligent Design Theory is not the same as Biblical Creationism. The ID theorists are trying (if the evolutionists, the press and the general public would let them) to approach their ideas as pure science. They are smart people and they know how to separate their science from their theology… Biblical Creationists, on the other hand, openly admit to using God’s Word as the basis of their worldview and as their approach to science. ... " [More ...]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins #4

The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins, Beliefnet, 15 December 2005 The renowned biologist talks about intelligent design, dishonest Christians, and why God is no better than an imaginary friend. Interview by Laura Sheahen. ...

Continued from part #3 with my comments bold and in square brackets and the interviewer's questions bold and in italics.

How would you respond to people who say the most interesting or worthwhile aspect of human beings is behavior that natural selection would not promote? I'm thinking of behavior like adopting children who aren't family members, voluntary celibacy, or people deciding to spend their whole life praying.

Adopting children that are not your own or a close relative's is an interesting question. Why do not just humans, but other species, do what on the face of it is the wrong thing to do from a selfish gene point of view? Cuckoos play upon this and actually engineer it so that other species raise [baby cuckoos]. This is a mistake on the part of the foster parents, which have been "forced" to adopt the cuckoos. [It sounds like this interviewer has done her homework (which means that Dawkins may not allow her another interview)! Dawkins is on record as saying that sociobiologists like him should not have to answer questions from "Lay critics" who "bring up some apparently maladaptive feature of modern human behaviour" like "adoption" because such questions "should never have been put":

"Lay critics frequently bring up some apparently maladaptive feature of modern human behaviour-adoption, say, or contraception-and fling down a challenge to `explain that if you can with your selfish genes'. Obviously, as Lewontin, Gould and others have rightly stressed, it would be possible, depending on one's ingenuity, to pull a `sociobiological' explanation out of a hat, a 'just-so story', but I agree with them and Cain that the answering of such challenges is a trivial exercise; indeed it is likely to be positively harmful. Adoption and contraception, like reading, mathematics, and stress-induced illness, are products of an animal that is living in an environment radically different from the one in which its genes were naturally selected. The question, about the adaptive significance of behaviour in an artificial world, should never have been put; and although a silly question may deserve a silly answer, it is wiser to give no answer at all and to explain why." (Dawkins R., "The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene," [1982], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1983, p.36)

But adoption is a (if not the) major problem with Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory, and he can only get around it by claiming that natural selection is too weak to change it:

"Mistakes of this sort may, however, occasionally happen in nature. In species that live in herds or troops, an orphaned youngster may be adopted by a strange female, most probably one who has lost her own child. Monkeywatchers sometimes use the word `aunt' for an adopting female. In most cases there is no evidence that she really is an aunt, or indeed any kind of relative: if monkey-watchers were as gene-conscious as they might be, they would not use an important word like `aunt' so uncritically. In most cases we should probably regard adoption, however touching it may seem, as a misfiring of a built-in rule. This is because the generous female is doing her own genes no good by caring for the orphan. She is wasting time and energy which she could be investing in the lives of her own kin, particularly future children of her own. It is presumably a mistake that happens too seldom for natural selection to have `bothered' to change the rule by making the maternal instinct more selective." (Dawkins R., "The Selfish Gene," [1976], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1989, New edition, p.100-101)

That is because according to that theory, adoption is "a double mistake" (or nature is right and Dawkins' theory is doubly mistaken!) in that "the adopter not only wastes her own time; she also releases a rival female from the burden of child-rearing, and frees her to have another child more quickly":

"There is one example of a mistake which is so extreme that you may prefer to regard it not as a mistake at all, but as evidence against the selfish gene theory. This is the case of bereaved monkey mothers who have been seen to steal a baby from another female, and look after it. I see this as a double mistake, since the adopter not only wastes her own time; she also releases a rival female from the burden of child-rearing, and frees her to have another child more quickly. It seems to me a critical example which deserves some thorough research. We need to know how often it happens; what the average relatedness between adopter and child is likely to be; and what the attitude of the real mother of the child is-it is, after all, to her advantage that her child should be adopted; do mothers deliberately try to deceive naive young females into adopting their children? (It has also been suggested that adopters and baby-snatchers might benefit by gaining valuable practice in the art of child-rearing.)" (Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene," p.101-102. Emphasis original)

Note by the way that according to Dawkins' bizarre gene-centred view of the world, "mothers ... deliberately try[ing] to deceive naive young females into adopting their children" (let alone "baby-snatchers") should be the norm! As the late Australian agnostic philosopher David Stove (who some regard as "The greatest philosopher of the twentieth century") noted, this "is a grotesque way of looking at human life ... But it is ... the Darwinian way":

"`is, after all, to [a mother's] advantage that her child should be adopted' by another woman.' This quotation is from Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, p. 110. Obviously false though this proposition is, from the point of view of Darwinism it is well-founded, for the reason which Dawkins gives on the same page: that another woman's adopting her baby `releases a rival female from the burden of child-rearing, and frees her to have another child more quickly.' This, you will say, is a grotesque way of looking at human life; and so, of course, it is. But it is impossible to deny that it is the Darwinian way." (Stove D.C., "So You Think You Are a Darwinian?," The Royal Institute of Philosophy, Philosophy 69, 1994, pp.267-277)

But the point is that if Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory was true, then the selfish genes of the "other species" that "adopt the cuckoos" would "force" them not to "adopt the cuckoos"! As David Stove pointed out, according to Darwin (and Darwinian logic) "adoption" is one of those things that, if Darwinism was true, should be "rigidly destroyed by natural selection":

"10. If variations which are useful to their possessors in the struggle for life `do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive), that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and of procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed.' This is from The Origin of Species, pp. 80-81. Exactly the same words occur in all the editions. Since this passage expresses the essential idea of natural selection, no further evidence is needed to show that proposition 10 is a Darwinian one. But is it true? In particular, may we really feel sure that every attribute in the least degree injurious to its possessors would be rigidly destroyed by natural selection? On the contrary, the proposition is (saving Darwin's reverence) ridiculous. Any educated person can easily think of a hundred characteristics, commonly occurring in our species, which are not only `in the least degree' injurious to their possessors, but seriously or even extremely injurious to them, which have not been `rigidly destroyed', and concerning which there is not the smallest evidence that they are in the process of being destroyed. Here are ten such characteristics, without even going past the first letter of the alphabet. Abortion; adoption; fondness for alcohol; altruism; anal intercourse; respect for ancestors; susceptibility to aneurism; the love of animals; the importance attached to art; asceticism, whether sexual, dietary, or whatever. Each of these characteristics tends, more or less strongly, to shorten our lives, or to lessen the number of children we have, or both. All of them are of extreme antiquity. Some of them are probably older than our species itself. Adoption, for example is practised by some species of chimpanzees: another adult female taking over the care of a baby whose mother has died. Why has not this ancient and gross `biological error' been rigidly destroyed? `There has not been enough time', replies the Darwinian. Well, that could be so: perhaps there has not been enough time. And then again, perhaps there has been enough time: perhaps even twenty times over. How long does it take for natural selection to destroy an injurious attribute, such as adoption or fondness for alcohol? ... So how come the Darwinian is so confident that there has not been enough time? What evidence can he point to, for thinking that there has not? Why, nothing but this, that adoption has not been destroyed, despite its being an injurious attribute! But this is palpably arguing in a circle, and taking for granted the very point which is in dispute. The Darwinian has no positive evidence whatever, that there has not been enough time. ... The cream of the jest, concerning proposition 10, is that Darwinians themselves do not really believe it. Ask a Darwinian whether he actually believes that the fondness for alcoholic drinks is being destroyed now, or that abortion is, or adoption - and watch his face. Well, of course he does not believe it! Why would he? There is not a particle of evidence in its favour, and there is a great mountain of evidence against it. Absolutely the only thing it has in its favour is that Darwinism says it must be so. But (as Descartes said in another connection) `this reasoning cannot be presented to infidels, who might consider that it proceeded in a circle'" (Stove D.C., "So You Think You Are a Darwinian?," The Royal Institute of Philosophy, Philosophy 69, 1994, pp.267-277. Emphasis original)

But in fact, not only in has adoption been common in many (if not most) human cultures, but "the animal kingdom finds adoption, or something like it, practiced by an astonishing array of creatures":

"From a Darwinian standpoint, going childless by choice is hard enough to explain, but adoption, as the arch-Darwinist Richard Dawkins notes, is a double whammy. Not only do you reduce, or at least fail to increase, your own reproductive success, but you improve someone else's. Since the birth parent is your rival in the great genetic steeplechase, a gene that encourages adoption should be knocked out of the running in fairly short order. It hasn't been ... Of course, Americans at the turn of the millennium do all sorts of strange things. We have strayed so far from the `ancestral environment,' as the evolutionary psychologists say, that one has to poke through layers of cultural and technological debris to find the logic of the genes. But a survey of human time and space finds many other cultures in which adoption has been common. In some of them, it has been far more common than it is with us. And extending the survey to the rest of the animal kingdom finds adoption, or something like it, practiced by an astonishing array of creatures, from orangutans to hermaphroditic worms." (Eisenberg E., "The Adoption Paradox," Discover, Vol. 22 No. 1, January 2001).

See other quotes in a section of my "Problems of Evolution" book outline, PE 15. 2.3 "Sociobiology ... Adoption" ]

So that's sort of a wild analogy to adopting children, in this case ones who are not your own species. By the way, I would hate this to be taken as any sort of suggestion that adoptive parents don't love their adopted children; of course they do. But you could think of it as a kind of genetic mistake, in that human adults have strong parental instincts which make them long for a child. If they can't have a child of their own, they can then satisfy those parental instincts by adopting a child. [The simple refutation of this `explanation' is that "human [and animal] adults" who can (and do) have a child of their own" also "adopt... a child", at some expense to their own offspring and to the benefit of a potential competitor's offspring:

"Motives for adopting may be as various as the people and animals that adopt. Among mammals, adoption has been reported in mice and rats, otters and skunks, llamas, deer and caribou, kangaroos and wallabies, seals and sea lions, as well as domestic animals such as dogs, pigs, goats, and sheep. Primates seem especially prone to adopt, as do carnivores of all sorts. ... The habit can be expensive. If the adoptee is added to an existing litter, the adopter's own offspring may get less to eat. If adopting delays the next brood, the adopter's lifetime reproductive success may be reduced. Even for the infertile, adoption seems maladaptive: It siphons off resources that might otherwise be shared with close relatives who share some fraction of their genes, thus reducing their `inclusive fitness.' ... In some species, mothers with one infant will take in another, despite the considerable strain involved in feeding, carrying, and protecting both. ... In any case, adoption among primates can't be chalked up to `reproductive error'- not in any literal sense. Like human adopters, these apes and monkeys seem to know what they are doing." (Eisenberg, ibid.)]

In the same way, we have sexual instincts; we long for sex and it doesn't matter that we use contraception. That's, as it were, separating the natural function of sex, which is reproduction. But we still enjoy sex in the same way that we enjoy being a parent even if it is not our own child that we're looking after. [In fact "contraception" is another one of those things that Stove notes above that should have been "rigidly destroyed by natural selection", as Dawkins himself admits in a quote above where he calls "contraception" (along with "adoption") as "apparently maladaptive feature of modern human behaviour." So Dawkins is `explaining' away one problem for his "selfish gene" theory by citing another problem for it!]

[Continued in part #5]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

`It is hard to imagine that an aeroplane designed in that evolutionary way should ever get off the ground'

Today I found this amazing quote by Richard Dawkins in which he uses the analogy of converting an aeroplane propeller engine into a jet engine, step-by-tiny-step, each of which must not only work but must be superior to the previous steps. But then Dawkins effectively admits that it wouldn't work ("A jet engine so assembled would be a weird contraption indeed") and he concludes that given this Darwinian mechanism and its constraints, "far from expecting animals to be perfect we may wonder that anything about them works at all" (my emphasis)!

I have incorporated this into a new section of my "Problems of Evolution" book outline, PE 9.4.19. "Natural selection. ... Unable to produce the end result":

---

"PROBLEMS OF EVOLUTION"

9. MECHANISMS
4. Natural selection
19. Unable to produce the end result

Dawkins compares the Darwinian mechanism of the natural selection of random micromutations with the analogy of evolving "the first jet engine from an existing propeller engine changing one component at a time, nut by nut, screw by screw, rivet by rivet" with the added constraint that "Not only must the end product get off the ground; so must every intermediate along the way, and each intermediate must be superior to its predecessor." He then, notes that "A jet engine so assembled would be a weird contraption indeed" and that "It is hard to imagine that an aeroplane designed in that evolutionary way should ever get off the ground." Dawkins then concluded that, given this Darwinian mechanism and its constraints, "far from expecting animals to be perfect we may wonder that anything about them works at all" (my emphasis):

"The jet engine superseded the propeller engine because, for most purposes it was superior. The designers of the first jet engine started with a clean drawing board. Imagine what they would have produced if they had been constrained to 'evolve' the first jet engine from an existing propeller engine changing one component at a time, nut by nut, screw by screw, rivet by rivet. A jet engine so assembled would be a weird contraption indeed. It is hard to imagine that an aeroplane designed in that evolutionary way should ever get off the ground. Yet in order to complete the biological analogy we have to add yet another constraint. Not only must the end product get off the ground; so must every intermediate along the way, and each intermediate must be superior to its predecessor. When looked at in this light far from expecting animals to be perfect we may wonder that anything about them works at all." (Dawkins R., "The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene," [1982], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1983, pp.38-39)

The obvious conclusion is that animals (and by extension all organisms) were not produced by such a Darwinian mechanism!

The British chemist and early intelligent design theorist Robert E.D. Clark (1906-1984), using the analogy of turning "one model of a wireless set into a larger and better one by continuous stages" (let alone a wireless into something fundamentally different, like a TV set!) had pointed out more than 30 years before that it is actually "impossible" for it to be accomplished by "steady upward rises of the kind demanded by materialistic evolutionists" because "Only after passing through the useless stage can it be made more useful than before":

"In order to build up a structure by natural selection, it is essential that each stage in the building process must make an animal better fitted to its environment than the one before it. An eye that is half developed must be more useful to an animal than an eye that is 49 per cent developed, and this in turn, than one, the development of which has proceeded to only 48 per cent, and so on. The graph of usefulness against the extent of structural organization must show a steady upward rise-otherwise progress must inevitably stop, hindered by natural selection itself. If the graph is not a steady upward rise, but has ups and downs, then natural selection (which selects usefulness and adaptation), working from either direction, will force the organism to the nearest maximum. Today, with our much greater knowledge of and familiarity with complex systems, we know that steady upward rises of the kind demanded by materialistic evolutionists are unknown to science. Isolated fundamental changes make a machine less efficient than it was before and may even make it useless, unless, indeed, numerous other adaptations are made at the same time. The radio manufacturer cannot turn one model of a wireless set into a larger and better one by continuous stages-he cannot add a new valve, a condenser, a piece of wire, etc., in a series of operations, and hope each time to obtain a model that is slightly better than the one before. All the changes must be made at once-or not at all! To add an extra valve to a wireless set you must first cut through wires, disconnect the loudspeaker, etc., and at once the set becomes useless as a functioning whole. Only after passing through the useless stage can it be made more useful than before. It is the same with all arrangements of matter organised as functioning units. To ask for a gradual, uniform, improvement is, it seems, to ask for the impossible." (Clark R.E.D., "The Universe: Plan or Accident?: The Religious Implications of Modern Science," [1949], Paternoster: London, Third edition, 1961, pp.123-124)

Cambridge University physics professor Brian Josephson, commenting on Dawkins's book, Climbing Mount Improbable (1996), made a similar point when he observed that "there is no ... logical necessity" that there existed, "a continuous path, leading from the origins of life to man, each step of which is both favored by natural selection, and small enough to have happened by chance" except that "commonly made assumptions in evolution require the existence of such a path":

"Dawkins's bold claims to tell us how Mount Improbable may be scaled offers no fundamental principles of promise regarding how biological information of the scale needed to explain macroevolution might be generated and absolutely no empirical support for his thesis that there is a footpath to the top of Mount Improbable with sufficiently small steps. In a recent letter to the editor of The Independent Brian Josephson, professor of physics at Cambridge University, summarizes Dawkins's approach: `In such books as The Blind Watchmaker, a crucial part of the argument concerns whether there exists a continuous path, leading from the origins of life to man, each step of which is both favored by natural selection, and small enough to have happened by chance. It appears to be presented as a matter of logical necessity that such a path exists, but actually there is no such logical necessity; rather, commonly made assumptions in evolution require the existence of such a path." [Josephson B., Letter to the editor, The Independent, January 12, 1997]." (Bradley W.L., "Designed or Designoid," in Dembski W.A., ed., "Mere Creation: Science, Faith & Intelligent Design," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1998, pp.47-48)

What this means is that the Darwinian mechanism, the natural selection of random micromutations, cannot produce even a reducibly complex system (analogous to a jet engine from a propeller engine), let alone an irreducibly complex system (such as the bacterial flagellum's propeller)!

So when Darwin wrote:

"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." (Darwin C.R., "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons: London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint, p.170)

he cunningly shifted the burden of proof from his own theory, to show that "any complex organ existed which could ... possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications" (my emphasis) onto his opponents to show an impossibility, the proving of a universal negative:

"In Darwin's words, `if it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' Darwin argued that all known organs indeed could have evolved in small steps. He took examples of complex adaptations and showed how these examples could have evolved through intermediate stages. In cases such as the eye ..., these intermediates can be illustrated by analogies with living species; in other cases, they can only be imagined. Darwin had to show only that the intermediates could possibly have existed. His critics had the more difficult task: they had to show that the intermediates could not have existed. It is very difficult to prove negative statements." (Ridley M., "Evolution," [1993], Blackwell: Cambridge MA, Second Edition, 1996, Third Printing, 1999, p.342)

But the fact is, as University of Chicago professor of microbiology James Shapiro concedes, "there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations" (and Shairo could have said "any complex system)"!:

"Behe quotes Darwin himself considering this possibility: `If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.' Surely, then, contemporary Darwinists have answers to rebut critics like Professor Behe. In fact, there are no detailed Darwinian accounts for the evolution of any fundamental biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations. It is remarkable that Darwinism is accepted as a satisfactory explanation for such a vast subject -- evolution -- with so little rigorous examination of how well its basic theses work in illuminating specific instances of biological adaptation or diversity." (Shapiro J.A., "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. Book reviews," National Review, September 16, 1996)

Darwin's theory is the modern science equivalent of billionaire Jean Paul Getty's quip that, "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." It would be just too embarrassing for modern science to admit that for the last nearly 150 years, the central theory of biology, simply cannot do what it claims to be able to do: convert the biological equivalent of a aeroplane propeller engine into a jet engine, step-by-tiny-step, such that each step would not only be fully functional, but would be superior to the preceding steps!

---

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins #3

The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins, Beliefnet, 15 December 2005. The renowned biologist talks about intelligent design, dishonest Christians, and why God is no better than an imaginary friend. Interview by Laura Sheahen.

Continued from part #2. The interviewer's questions are bold and in italics and my comments are bold and in square brackets.

You criticize intelligent design, saying that "the theistic answer"--pointing to God as designer--"is deeply unsatisfying"--presumably you mean on a logical, scientific level.

Yes, because it doesn't explain where the designer comes from. If they're going to emphasize the statistical improbability of biological organs-"these are so complicated, how could they have evolved?"--well, if they're so complicated, how could they possibly have been designed? Because the designer would have to be even more complicated. [First, this is a straw man question by the interviewer. ID does not "point... to God as designer." And if Dawkins had the "moral purity" he is reputed to have:

"Dawkins, however, has the moral purity-some would say the moral rigidity-of the evangelical Christian or the committed feminist. Not even for the sake of argument can he endorse something that he thinks false. To do so is not just mistaken, he feels; in some deep sense, it is wrong. Life is serious, and there are evils to be fought. There must be no compromise or equivocation, even for pedagogical reasons. As the Quakers say, "Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay." (Ruse M.E., "Through a Glass, Darkly," American Scientist, November-December 2003)

he would correct the interviewer with something like, "First, to be fair, ID does not "point... to God as designer". But Dawkins' "moral purity" is that of the self-righteous Pharisee:

"Yet while Dawkins' atheism became more strident in its tone and more aggressive in its assertions, it did not become noticeably more sophisticated in terms of the arguments offered. Religious folk are demonized as dishonest, liars, fools, and knaves, incapable of responding honestly to the real world, and preferring to invent a false, pernicious, and delusionary world into which to entice the unwary, the young, and the naive. It is a line of thought that has led many to suggest, not entirely without reason, that Dawkins might have fallen victim to the kind of self-righteousness that biblical writers associated with the Pharisees. The writer Douglas Adams recalls Dawkins once remarking: "I really don't think I'm arrogant, but I do get impatient with people who don't share with me the same humility in front of the facts." [Fulford R., "Richard Dawkins Talks Atheism with Messianic Zeal," National Post, November 25, 2003] Yet the awkward fact, which Dawkins seems reluctant to concede, is that there are many sane and intelligent individuals who draw conclusions which differ completely from his through precisely that same humble engagement with the scientific evidence. Perhaps they are mad; perhaps they are bad; but then again, perhaps they are neither. (McGrath A.E., "Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life," Blackwell: Malden MA, 2005, pp.8-9)

unable to see (or unable to admit to himself) the "plank in his own eye" (Mat 7:5).

Second, see my ID FAQ for the refutation of Dawkins' answer, "intelligent design ... doesn't explain where the designer comes from": 1) "if science was required to explain everything along an infinite regress, before it could explain something, then there could be no scientific explanation of anything new"; 2) "It is an exaggeration and a Fallacy of False Dilemma, Dawkins' claim that a statement which does not explain everything, therefore explains nothing"; and 3) "Dawkins' argument is fatal to evolution (for starters), because then "to explain the origin of species by invoking natural processes is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of natural processes". It therefore also commits the Fallacy of Special Pleading, i.e.:

"to apply a double standard: one for ourselves ... and another (a stricter one) for everyone else." (Engel S.M., "With Good Reason, 1990, pp.145-146); "having it both ways ... ignoring or twisting the facts to his own advantage." (Fearnside W.W. & Holther W.B., "Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument," 1959, p.108); "a common fault in argument arising from the influence of prejudice which may be employed deliberately as a dishonest trick, but which more usually is the result of the speaker being himself blinded by his prejudices." (Thouless R.H., "Straight and Crooked Thinking," 1973, pp.156-157)

because Dawkins would have to exempt his own field of Evolutionary Biology (and indeed every other branch of science!) from the standard he applies to ID.]

Obviously, a lot of people find the theistic answer satisfying on another level. What do you see as the problem with that level?

What other level?

At whatever level where people say the idea of God is very satisfying.

Well, of course it is. Wouldn't it be lovely to believe in an imaginary friend who listens to your thoughts, listens to your prayers, comforts you, consoles you, gives you life after death, can give you advice? Of course it's satisfying, if you can believe it. But who wants to believe a lie? [Well Dawkins for one, since Christianity is true and therefore atheism is false!]

Is atheism the logical extension of believing in evolution?

They clearly can't be irrevocably linked because a very large number of theologians believe in evolution. In fact, any respectable theologian of the Catholic or Anglican or any other sensible church believes in evolution. Similarly, a very large number of evolutionary scientists are also religious. My personal feeling is that understanding evolution led me to atheism. [Dawkins is also committing a Fallacy of Equivocation on the word "evolution". He had previously claimed (and I agree with him) that "any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all" (my emphasis):

"Darwin ... wrote in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, the leading geologist of his day: `If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish...I would give nothing for the theory of Natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.' This is no petty matter. In Darwin's view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations. For what it is worth, it is also the whole point of this book. For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker," 1986, pp.248-249. Emphasis original)

But the "evolution" that the typical "theologian of the Catholic or Anglican or any other sensible church believes in" is the God-guided "evolution" of Mike Behe:

"[Eugenie] Scott refers to me as an intelligent design `creationist,' even though I clearly write in my book `Darwin's Black Box' (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think `evolution occurred, but was guided by God.'" (Behe M.J., "Intelligent Design Is Not Creationism," Science, dEbate, 7 July 2000)

That is the sort of "evolution" which, Cardinal Schönborn believes in, i.e. "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry" but not "evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process":

"The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science." (Schönborn C., "Finding Design in Nature," The New York Times July 7, 2005)

As for Dawkins' claiming his "understanding evolution led me to atheism", in this interview he said he was already a pantheist (which denies there is a personal so is a form of atheism) before he "first understood that Darwinism provides an explanation big enough and elegant enough to replace gods":

"I toyed with atheism from the age of about nine, originally because I worked out that, of all the hundreds of religions in the world, it was the sheerest accident that I was brought up Christian. They couldn't all be right, so maybe none of them was. I later reverted to a kind of pantheism when I realised the shattering complexity and beauty of the living world. Then, around the age of 16, I first understood that Darwinism provides an explanation big enough and elegant enough to replace gods. I have been an atheist ever since." (Dawkins R., "You Ask The Questions," Independent, 23 February 2003)

So for Dawkins it seems that his "believing in evolution" was "the logical extension of" his atheism!]

[Continued in part #4]

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"

If ID is a theory equivalent to evolution ... #2

Repack Rider

Continued from part #1. Again, in response to your comment, to distinguish your words from mine, I prefixed them with "RR>" and bolded them.

-----Original Message -----
From: Repack Rider
To: Stephen E. Jones
Sent: Monday, December 26, 2005 1:23 AM
Subject: It's Over in Dover, But Not For Intelligent Design

RR>Finally, the ID proponents must show us how ID can be "falsified," i.e. give us an example of a hypothetical observation that would show it to be false.

See again my new ID FAQs, specifically Objections to ID ... ID cannot be falsified. There I answer this objection: 1) "all that is required to falsify ID ... is to produce a plausible explanation of how that feature [e.g. the bacterial flagellum) was produced solely by unintelligent causes"; 2) "In fact some Darwinist critics claim they already have falsified ID, which makes the claim that ID is both falsified and unfalsifiable a self-contradictory absurdity"; and 3) "Actually, the boot is on the other foot. It is not ID which is unfalsifiable but Darwinism, since if attempts to falsify ID ... fail, committed Darwinists will not then conclude that Darwinism is false and ID is true, but they will then, as a last resort, appeal to unknown (and even unknowable) unintelligent processes.

As an example, if a dog gave birth to a cat, the Theory of Evolution would be falsified. That hasn't happened yet, so the theory stands uncontradicted.

See part 1 on it being unclear what actually is "the Theory of Evolution."

This is typical of Darwinists proposing of a non-risky `test' by which (they claim) "the Theory of Evolution would be falsified". But no theory of origins claims that "a dog gave birth to a cat." Even Biblical creationism claims that plants and animals reproduce "according to their various kinds" (Genesis 1:12, 21, 24). When Karl Popper proposed falsifiability as a demarcation criterion of what is, and is not, "science", he meant risky tests, such that there was a real possibility that if the theory was false, it would fail the test:

"KARL POPPER PROVIDES the indispensable starting point for understanding the difference between science and pseudoscience. Popper spent his formative years in early twentieth century Vienna, where intellectual life was dominated by science-based ideologies like Marxism and the psychoanalytic schools of Freud and Adler. These were widely accepted as legitimate branches of natural science, and they attracted large followings among intellectuals because they appeared to have such immense explanatory power. Acceptance of either Marxism or psychoanalysis had, as Popper observed, the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, opening your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirming instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refused to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still 'un-analyzed' and crying aloud for treatment ... A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation-which revealed the class bias of the paper-and especially of course in what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their 'clinical observations.' Popper saw that a theory that appears to explain everything actually explains nothing. If wages fell this was because the capitalists were exploiting the workers, as Marx predicted they would, and if wages rose this was because the capitalists were trying to save a rotten system with bribery, which was also what Marxism predicted. A psychoanalyst could explain why a man would commit murder - or, with equal facility, why the same man would sacrifice his own life to save another. According to Popper, however, a theory with genuine explanatory power makes risky predictions, which exclude most possible outcomes. Success in prediction is impressive only to the extent that failure was a real possibility. Popper was impressed by the contrast between the methodology of Marx or Freud on the one hand, and Albert Einstein on the other. Einstein almost recklessly exposed his General Theory of Relativity to falsification by predicting the outcome of a daring experiment. If the outcome had been other than as predicted, the theory would have been discredited. The Freudians in contrast looked only for confirming examples, and made their theory so flexible that everything counted as confirmation. Marx did make specific predictions - concerning the inevitable crises of capitalism, for example - but when the predicted events failed to occur his followers responded by modifying the theory so that it still `explained' whatever had happened. Popper set out to answer not only the specific question of how Einstein's scientific method differed from the pseudoscience of Marx and Freud, but also the more general question of what `science' is and how it differs from philosophy or religion." (Johnson P.E., "Darwin on Trial," [1991], InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, Second edition, 1993, p.147).

"falsifiability The property of a statement or theory that it is capable of being refuted by experience. In the philosophy of science of Popper falsifiability is the great merit of genuine scientific theory, as opposed to unfalsifiable pseudo-science, notably psychoanalysis and historical materialism. Popper's idea was that it could be a positive virtue in a scientific theory that it is bold, conjectural, and goes beyond the evidence, but that it had to be capable of facing possible refutation. If each and every way things turn out is compatible with the theory, then it is no longer a scientific theory; but, for instance, an ideology or article of faith." (Blackburn S., "The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy," [1994], Oxford University Press: Oxford UK, 1996, p.135)

"falsifiability n. A falsifiable hypothesis is one which can be put to a test by which it could conceivably be refuted. The concept is important in Karl Popper's philosophy of science, according to which the distinctive feature of any scientific theory is that its hypotheses can be put to a test. The distinctive feature of a good scientific theory is that its hypotheses pass the test. The contrast is with pseudo-science. The adherents of a pseudo-science are able to cling to its hypotheses no matter how events turn out, because the hypotheses are not testable." (Mautner T., "The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy," [1996], Penguin: London, Revised, 2000, p.195. Emphasis in original)

So what is needed is: 1) a risky test, 2) that is unique to, "the Theory of Evolution", such that if it failed the test, it would be falsified. The fact that Darwinists routinely propose such non-risky `tests' of "the Theory of Evolution" shows that it fits Popper's criterion of an "unfalsifiable pseudo-science".

RR>ID proponents claim that the scientific community shuts them out, without admitting that they have failed to meet even the lowest standard of testing their ideas. Despite their claims, overturning an accepted scientific claim is the fastest way to collect a Nobel Prize, and the means of doing so are well known.

That is exactly what happened to ID theorist Stephen Meyer in his ID-based paper on "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" in the peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. When Darwinists discovered that an ID article had been published in a peer-reviewed journal, they forced the article to be withdrawn from the journal's webbed archives and hounded from his job the editor, evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg.

RR>All the ID proponents have to do in order to validate their idea, which does not yet reach the level of being a theory, is to use it to explain observations of evolution, tell us how it can be falsified, and then make a prediction based on ID that is DIFFERENT from what the ToE would predict, and test it for accuracy. IF they can make predictions that are consistently more accurate than what the ToE predicts, everyone will switch over.

See above and previous.

RR>Biologists use the ToE because it is a useful tool, not because they are anti-science. No other theory explains the observations and has been shown to be a more accurate predictor of biological events, and until something more useful comes along,there is only one "theory" to choose from.

See above and previous on "the ToE".

ID does not deny that evolutionary theories may be useful tools. As I responded to a journalist, "ID is not necessarily opposed to evolution ... [except] when [it] ... denies that there is design in nature:

As for "ID versus evolution," ID is not necessarily opposed to evolution if by "evolution" is meant microevolution, such as insects becoming resistant to insecticide, changes in the frequency of light and dark moths in a population, or the lengths of the beaks of finches on the Galapagos islands. ID is not even necessarily opposed to universal common ancestry. One of ID's leaders, Professor Michael Behe, has stated, "I find the idea of common descent (that all organisms share a common ancestor) fairly convincing, and have no particular reason to doubt it"[3]. Another ID leader, Dr William Dembski, has pointed out that, "intelligent design is compatible with ... the most far-ranging evolution (e.g., God seamlessly melding all organisms together into one great tree of life)."[4] I myself accept universal common ancestry.[5] ID is only necessarily opposed to "evolution" when the latter denies that there is design in nature, e.g. Darwinian evolution (or Darwinism), as in the title of leading Darwinist, Professor Richard Dawkins' book, "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design" (Norton, New York, 1986. My emphasis).

RR>If ID has failed to make an impact on the scientific community, it is only because those who adhere to it have failed to make their case in the same manner that the ToE has. They have had nearly 150 years to do so, and I have stopped holding my breath.

The ID movement as such has only existed since 1984, with the publication of Thaxton, Bradley and Olsen's "The Mystery of Life's Origin," and has only really reached a critical mass in 1996 with the publication of Mike Behe's "Darwin's Black Box". And if there is one thing that ID has done in that comparatively short time, and that is "make an impact on the scientific community"!

But the reason that ID is being suppressed by the science establishment is because of the atheist/agnostic personal philosophy of 90-95% of its members:

"The 1998 NAS members perhaps provide a more immaculate sample of the elite than Leuba's starred entries did. Congress created the National Academy of Sciences in 1863, and after naming its first members Congress empowered them and their successors to choose all later members. Its current membership of 1,800 remains the closest thing to peerage in American science. And their responses validate Leuba's prediction of the beliefs of topflight scientists generations from his time. Disbelief among NAS members responding to our survey exceeded 90 percent. The increase may simply reflect that they are more elite than Leuba's `greater' scientists, but this interpretation would also please Leuba. NAS biologists are the most skeptical, with 95 percent of our respondents evincing atheism and agnosticism ... The NAS is mindful of its obligation to serve the public, but it can be a delicate course to maneuver. Disbelief and belief have often become a major public relations issue for science in religious America. ... Yet, to its credit, in 1998 the NAS issued a report proudly promoting the teaching of evolution in public school. `Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral,' the report cautiously begins, before launching its broadside of scientific arguments against religious objections to teaching evolution. But the irony is remarkable: a group of specialists who are nearly all nonbelievers-and who believe that science compels such a conclusion-told the public that `science is neutral' on the God question." (Larson E.J. & Witham L., "Scientists and Religion in America," Scientific American, Vol. 281, No. 3, September 1999, pp.78-83, p.81)

The atheist Darwinist historian William Provine candidly admitted that "the great majority of modern evolutionary biologists now are atheists or something very close to that":

"My observation is that the great majority of modern evolutionary biologists now are atheists or something very close to that. Yet prominent atheistic or agnostic scientists publicly deny that there is any conflict between science and religion. Rather than simple intellectual dishonesty, this position is pragmatic. In the United States, elected members of Congress all proclaim to be religious. Many scientists believe that funding for science might suffer if the atheistic implications of modern science were widely understood." (ProvineW.B., Review of "Trial and Error: The American Controversy over Creation and Evolution," by Edward J. Larson, Oxford University Press: New York, 1985, Academe, Vol. 73, January/February 1987, pp.50-52, p.52.)

This was let slip by evolutionary zoologist Arthur Shapiro, reviewing in the pro-evolution journal Creation/Evolution an early ID book called "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer" (1994). Shapiro observed in passing that if Science journal received "a paper ...which proceeds from the prior assumption of intelligent design", it would cause "the editorial board of Science [to]... convene in emergency session to decide what to do about" it (my emphasis):

"The Creation Hypothesis (InterVarsity Press, 1994) ... received a remarkably respectful review in Creation/Evolution, a strongly anticreationist journal. Reviewer Arthur Shapiro, professor of zoology at the Davis campus of the University of California, concluded with this paragraph: `I can see Science in the year 2000 running a major feature article on the spread of theistic science as a parallel scientific culture. I can see interviews with the leading figures in history and philosophy of science about how and why this happened. For the moment, the authors of The Creation Hypothesis are realistically defensive. They know their way of looking at the world will not be generally accepted and that they will be restricted for a while to their own journals. ... If they are successful, the day will come when the editorial board of Science will convene in emergency session to decide what to do about a paper which is of the highest quality and utterly unexceptionable, of great and broad interest, and which proceeds from the prior assumption of intelligent design. For a preview of that crisis, you should read this book. Of course, if you are smug enough to think `theistic science' is an oxymoron, you won't.'" (Shapiro A.N., Review of Moreland J.P., ed., "The Creation Hypothesis: Scientific Evidence for an Intelligent Designer," InterVarsity Press, 1994, Creation/Evolution, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1994, pp.36-37, in Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance: The Case Against Naturalism in Science, Law, and Education," InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove IL, 1995, p.239)

Now what other topic would cause such a panic reaction on the part of "the editorial board of Science"? Shapiro himself says the problem would not be the paper itself, which he envisages as being "of the highest quality and utterly unexceptionable, of great and broad interest." The problem then, to the atheist/agnostics who comprise "the editorial board of Science", is "the prior assumption of intelligent design."

While ID does not claim the designer is God (since that cannot be proved from the evidence of nature alone), these atheist/agnostics who are trying to suppress ID, demonstrate what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 1:18-20 that guilty sinners (whether scientists or not) intuitively recognise that the Designer is God, but they don't want it to be so. Therefore the suppression of ID by the overwhelmingly atheist/agnostic science establishment has nothing to do with actual science of ID, and everything to do with the individual scientists' atheistic/agnostic personal philosophy!

Stephen E. Jones, BSc (Biol).
"Problems of Evolution"